


L'appel du Vide

by CamilleDuDemon



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Arthur's POV, Bc serously Arthur's got a thing for Eames chewing, Eames is very inappropriate, Even though the title is ominous the content isn't angsty at all, Food Porn, Friends With Benefits, Inappropriate Humor, M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Slash, Suicidal Thoughts, does a tag like "chewing porn" exist?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 17:35:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16686058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CamilleDuDemon/pseuds/CamilleDuDemon
Summary: Arthur and Eames meet on a very, very cold day dans la gare de Calais-Fréthun, after fourteen months apart. Eames is a tease with a twisted sense of humor, Arthur is intrigued by the sound he makes while he's sucking on a very, very british candy.[“Eames. I'm on a job”, he dryly states. There's the smallest hint of a tremble in his hands, but he hopes Eames is too distracted by whatever thing to notice that.Two of his teammates show up, finally, coming from two different directions and parting their ways once they've given a quick look to the bright flat screen that shows arrivals and departures. One doesn't. Arthur guesses that they can make it even without her, regular - dull, he'd dare to say - espionage doesn't require large teams and a huge amount of resources.“Well, not anymore, darling. The mark isn't going to show up, I'm afraid”, Eames says, the ghost of a smirk in his words.Arthur can't say if he wants to punch him in the face or punch himself instead for putting his trust into the words coming from a forger's mouth.A fucking forger, for fuck's sake.]





	L'appel du Vide

Arthur doesn't know how much time he has spent sitting on this bench, in a crowded _gare_ near Calais, where Eurostars and TGVs arrive and leave, in an endless pageant of faces, pouts, frowns and hopeful smiles. Backpacks and briefcases. Older people, younger ones. Sometimes, Arthur wishes he could just jump on a train and disappear somewhere in southern Europe, maybe in Barcelona or Athens, or Rome. 

_ Three years without taking a single fucking vacation is a long, long time.  _

He feels tired, and the chilly, damp cold air pierces through the various layers of his clothes, setting in his bones and making him shiver under his heavy coat.

The mark is not in sight, nor are his fellow teammates. Just to be sure, Arthur checks at the familiar weight of his totem, buried deep in his left front pocket, that old counterfeit dice with filed angles and one too many scratches on its surface, and once he's sure he's not trapped in a dream he sighs, the air stabbing through his lungs like a million shards of glass.

_ Fucking Calais. Fucking November. Fucking November in fucking Calais. _

He takes out a copy of the local newspaper from his briefcase and starts flipping through the pages without even bothering to look like he's paying attention.

_ Local news has got something that's picturesque and equally depressing. It never fails to remind him how he could have had that kind of intimate, parochial domesticity if he wasn't who he is, if he didn't do what he does for a living. _

Arthur thinks about a wife: he can't picture it. He thinks of dark, straight, shoulder-length hair, but nothing more. He thinks about a husband, then: needless to say he doesn't like what he sees. Old-fashioned, mismatched suits. Untailored slacks. Plush lips and a rough stubble on the chin.

_ No, Arthur doesn't like what he's picturing, not at all. _

He shakes his newspaper but he doesn't even know why. Checking at his watch and notice how everyone is spectacularly late makes him feel antsier than how he cares to admit.

The bench on which he's sitting has made his arse freeze. Five minutes more. Five minutes more and he's out, he repeats to himself, checking on his expensive watch again.

Five minutes more.

He scrolls the news absentmindedly, his French fluent enough to let him realize how much he doesn't give a damn about anything.  _ Five minutes and he's out, booking the first flight to a warmer place and taking mental notes of the partners with which he doesn't wish to work anymore. _

_ “ _ Excusez-moi, Vous avez l'heure?”

Arthur doesn't spare the owner of this Parisian accented voice a glance. 

“Il est sept heures”, he says. Give or take. Actually, it's a quarter past seven, but he doesn't recall how to say that, since he's never needed to tell someone what time it was before. In French, of course.

“Since when you've started passing off false information, darling?”

Arthur blushes violently, tightening his grip around the tattered pages of his newspaper. 

_ Eames. _

_ Speak of the devil. _

It takes him an inhuman effort not to look at him, after all this time. It's been exactly fourteen months. Arthur isn't proud of that, but he has even kept track of the weeks, so that it's fourteen months and the tune of two weeks he hasn't seen, nor heard from Eames.

He has known he was alive all along, though. He has never stopped checking on his whereabouts and jobs, in the meantime. According to his last research, he should have been in China, working on a risky job with Marie-Anne, Barrowman and a very talented rookie, Lexie. Eames, though, is a difficult subject to keep an eye on.

“Eames. I'm on a job”, he dryly states. There's the smallest hint of a tremble in his hands, but he hopes Eames is too distracted by whatever thing to notice that.

Two of his teammates show up, finally, coming from two different directions and parting their ways once they've given a quick look to the bright flat screen that shows arrivals and departures. One doesn't. Arthur guesses that they can make it even without her, regular - dull, he'd dare to say - espionage doesn't require large teams and a huge amount of resources.

“Well, not anymore, darling. The mark isn't going to show up, I'm afraid”, Eames says, the ghost of a smirk in his words.

Arthur can't say if he wants to punch him in the face or punch himself instead for putting his trust into the words coming from a  _ forger's  _ mouth.

A fucking forger, for fuck's sake.

He manages to remain calm and look incredibly stoic, as always. Unmoved, despite the anger that comes in waves to his brain and makes him crave, crave for an Eurostar to cross the station at full speed so he can throw Eames on the railway.

_ He would never, though he likes to think he'd be capable of doing it without feeling the slight bit of guilt or regret afterwards. _

_ He's more likely to jump on the railway himself, for what it's worth. _

“How, Eames. How do you know that”, he says, and it doesn't sound like a question at all. His jaws snap nervously, teeth gritting arch against arch.

“He knows”, Eames simply states, unfolding a newspaper on his knees. It must be  _ Le Monde _ , for some reason Eames seems to be an aficionado of French national press. 

“Did you…”

_ Did you tell him?  _ He would like to ask. He doesn't, though, because he  _ knows _ Eames would never sabotage one of his jobs willingly, on his own volition, and he  _ knows  _ he has got money enough not to care about doing that out of necessity.

_ But. _

Eames chuckles.

“No. Your mark has got some valid sources, darling, but not as valid as I would be. And, besides, I'd never jeopardize one of  _ your _ jobs”, he says, stressing the word  _ your  _ enough to make Arthur shift uncomfortably on his seat.

“Who's his informant?”, he resolves to ask, only to keep him out of his head. For how much Eames loves to walk on thin ice, he doesn't.

Thin ice is dangerous, danger is... something he can't afford to pursue. Not on a job, nor on his everyday life.

_ But oh, how much Eames loves to push boundaries over and over. _

A sour scent of Sherbet Lemons hits Arthur's nostrils and he catches a glimpse of translucent plastic wrap getting crushed into Eames’ fist, then shoved inside the pockets of his too light coat.

All that he can think about is that Eames is gonna get pneumonia or some similar disease, if he doesn't get a coat that's more suitable for this bitter cold.

_ It would be a well-earned pneumonia and, on a second thought, he shouldn't even be concerned with that. _

“I have no clue, sorry”, Eames finally says, the sherbet candy hitting against the crowns of his crooked, sharp teeth, producing a crashing sound that Arthur finds both irritating and inexplicably arousing.

He's a loud chewer.

Or, perhaps, he's just trying to divert Arthur's attention on his chiseled mouth as he sucks on that fucking candy as though he was engaged in a very sloppy, lewd blowjob.

Arthur feels his trousers get inconveniently tight on the crotch and hisses quietly at that blatant betrayal of his own body.

“You should be in China, Eames”, he says, and the goddamn asshole sucks on his candy with renewed vigor.

“Yeah, well, what can I say. I guess I missed you”, it's his reply.

_ Arthur is tempted, very tempted, to tell him to go to hell. _

“Didn't end well, am I right?”

Eames chuckles. Arthur straightens his newspaper and, again, he pretends to be carefully focused on particularly juicy news. 

“Ended not-so-well. But we carried it out and we made it home safe.”

Loud chewing. Loud sucking.

It would be like a goddamn ASMR YouTube video, if it wasn’t for the fact that Eames is  _ teasing,  _ which is pretty obvious knowing him.

“Well, you shouldn’t have come here”, Arthur proudly states, hoping that his voice sounds steady enough. When Eames chuckles  _ again,  _ he knows he hoped in vain.

A train to God-knows-where crosses the station, its metallic whistle a torture to Arthur’s sensitive ears. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches as Eames diligently chews his Sherbet Lemon, carefully swallowing its mauled, minuscule pieces, and then proceeds to light himself a cigarette with a vintage Zippo, the intoxicating scent of its flammable fluid - synthetic isoparaffinic hydrocarbon, with fancy words; naphtha, with less fancy words and a minimum waste of breath - spreading all around. It would be pointless for him to wonder  _ why  _ does Eames light his cigarette as if he was doing something less chaste than simply lighting a cigarette, because he already knows he does this for the tease.  _ More specifically, to tease him. Like he always does. _

“Do you ever experience it, darling?”

Arthur frowns. He’s still looking at the same page of his newspaper, always the same, so he skips a couple of pages and starts reading the arts section without putting a real effort into understanding which movies are out on theaters or which ballets or plays are taking place in Calais on the weekend.

His mark - or, as he guesses, former mark - isn’t particularly fond of arts in general.

He likes money and women and expensive Champagne, he’s a PSG supporter and goes skiing on the French side of the Mont Blanc twice a year.

“Experience what.”

“Oh my, Arthur, you weren’t listening!”, Eames squeals, faking indignance.

He’s not smoking his usual brand of cigarettes, Arthur can tell that by the sour smell of the grey smoke that comes from his mouth in oddly shaped puffs and shortly after disappears, swallowed by the sky that’s the same shade of blue-ish gray.

“Of course I wasn’t. I’m on a job, Eames.”

Eames nudges discreetly at his thigh, squeezing gently. His hand feels cold, even through the tailor-quality light wool of Arthur’s trousers.

_ Which is odd, because Eames always seems to be slightly warmer than anyone else.  _

Arthur thinks that he shouldn’t notice these details. He really shouldn’t. But whenever Eames dares to casually brush even a finger alone on him, Arthur suddenly stops working for a split second, like a roughly restarted laptop or a DVD player paused by accident by someone inadvertently sitting on the remote.

“Forget that, I told you the mark has been informed of your intentions.”

Arthur rolls his eyes.

_ He’s sure Eames would never purposefully mess with a job, especially when it involves him, but. Can he be, actually, that sure? _

“What were you saying, Eames? When I wasn’t listening.”

Eames unwraps another Sherbet Lemon.

_ How unfair. Rude, almost. _

“I was wondering if you’ve ever felt that sort of pull to nowhere that these French call  _ l’appel du vide _ , darling. I do always experience it, when I find myself in a train station. It’s thrilling to know that you could just, let’s say, cross the railway when the train is approaching, so fast, so fast that no matter how much you pick up the pace, it will simply make scrambled eggs out of you”, he says, amusement oozing from his words in such an indelicate, inappropriate way Arthur feels the urge to reprimand him for being such an insensitive asshole. He doesn’t, by the way, because he has no fucking right to - that’s what he keeps repeating to himself - question Eames’ choices and twisted morals, nor to let him know that he cares  _ so deeply. _

Thinking about ‘Eames’ and ‘care’ in the same sentence makes Arthur’s blood run faster through his veins.

“If you’re experiencing suicidal thoughts, Eames, I suggest you to talk about that with your therapist. Sadly, I didn’t graduate in anything concerning human psychology, so…”

Now Eames’ amusement turns into a real, heartfelt laugh.

Arthur really can’t understand what’s so funny in a conversation about throwing themselves under the merciless weight of a runaway train or, if that matters, jump down a very tall building, that kind of nonsense.

_ Because that’s what it is, fucking nonsense. _

That’s reality, not a goddamn dream, and jumping off a roof doesn’t make you wake up like abracadabra or whatever.

“For fuck’s sake, Arthur, that’s just small talk!”, he says, and this time it’s his knee brushing against Arthur while Eames manspreads comfortably on the bench, sucking on his goddamn candy in a way that can only be described as  _ naughty,  _ even though Arthur loathes to  _ feel  _ like this for Eames.

He would, in facts, loathe to feel this way for anyone, but Eames...Eames is like a special case.

Eames, a flirty tease who knows too better that he's a flirty, goddamn handsome tease.

“If that's small talk, then planning your funeral should be like a fantasy first date”, Arthur states back, regretting to have used those words  _ \- first and date - _ while talking to Eames.

“Well,  _ c'est L'appel du vide,  _ darling, that's its magic.”

Now Arthur doesn't really have a clue about what Eames is trying to say or, perhaps, not to say. And he might, might be concerned about his sanity at this point but, however, Eames always tends to be some sort of a cryptic joker when he's not in his pragmatic, straightforward working mood.

“Are you high on something, Eames?”, he bluntly asks, then. He can only picture how his lips might be moving, right now, because his eyes are stubbornly glued to the lame pages of his newspaper and he hasn't dared to move a muscle, not even dared to exhale a breath that’s heavier than the others, because Eames’ proximity is something that never misses to fuck up with his common sense pretty bad.

_ Arthur can't afford that. _

“No, why should I be? I asked a simple question.”

“You asked if I feel like being ran over by a train once in a while, Eames. I wouldn't say that's just a  _ simple question” _ , Arthur says, dreaming to frame that word with exasperated air quotes but keeping his fingers from moving on their own volition instead.

“But, come on, we all experience that. Even though we die in the dreamshare, we die a lot, but how would it be to die  _ for real? _ ”

Eames question and his light-hearted mood makes Arthur's skin crawl. He never thought about dying, not even once, because being shot in the head or forced to jump off a window isn't  _ exactly  _ a pleasant experience when it's not real... thinking about how worse would it feel if it was chills him to the bone.

He guesses he's just afraid of death, like every sane and functioning human being who still owns an ounce of survival instinct, and a cruel, mocking voice in the back of his head tells him he should have been an accountant or a preschool teacher if he was  _ that  _ afraid of dying, not the fucking pointman in the fucking dream crime business.

He cannot picture himself nor as an accountant, nor as a preschool teacher, though.

And, besides, he has come to terms with the fact that he could just get shot in the head by a skilled sniper right now, right here, while Eames is sucking on a Sherbet Lemon and cheerfully talking about death.

Being killed by a sniper, however, would be very very different than jumping in front of a moving train, even though he could be held accountable for that in both cases, on a different extent. 

Not to mention he's not that curious about what's on the other side.

“Cut with the bullshit, Eames, I've never experienced that so called  _ appel du vide  _ and I don't think I will in the nearest future, thanks.”

Cutting it short as always been the best option. It's practical and it avoids wasting precious time over mundane matters. Eames, when he's not focused on a job, is all mundane matters and bright smiles.

If Arthur would dare to slightly turn his head, he would surely get welcomed by one of Eames’ proverbial smiles, where his crooked teeth look like an exact replica of Michelangelo's David, even with all their flaws, fitting perfectly in a mouth that’s this beautiful and giving it it's peculiar  _ beauty. _

Eames giggles gleefully and Arthur hears the sweet, sticky sound of fingers being sucked. Why is he sucking at his own fingers is a mystery to him, a mystery he convinces himself on willingly choose to remain ignorant about.

The question, however, tortures him, even though it's just a mere whisper lingering in the back of his already too noisy head.

“I was forging this suicidal young girl, you know? Because our mark was a philanthropist of some sort, a very selfless man”, he says, and sarcasm is blatant in his carefully chosen, perfectly accented words. He giggles again to a joke he hasn't even voiced and that probably only he himself can get, and he chews.

The Sherbet Lemon gets easily crushed by his teeth and it sounds like a crashing window, or a glass panel of some sort getting smashed by the sheer force of a thunderstorm.

Arthur has stopped wondering why he finds everything that Eames does so inexplicably erotic.  _ He just knows and, even though this is anything like an explanation at all, he always forces himself to just accept things as they are, facts as they're presented, because there's nothing he can do about that, nor he's one to succumb to his lowest instincts. _

Sometimes, while he's in the shower scrubbing away the exhaustion of a long day, he thinks about Eames’ lips. His beautiful face whole. The curve of his ass, which he so expertly conceals under these awful vintage slacks of his, always too big on his hips and thighs. His thighs, his thighs are something Arthur has quite fantasized about, if he's being honest: it’s easy for him to spot the frame of those firm, long thighs whenever Eames is sitting and, man, those thighs could end world hunger and all the wars in the Middle-East even when they’re concealed, it should be no surprise to Arthur to find out how much more beautiful they could be when they’re bared.

_ He comes in his own hand thinking about those thighs. _

“In China?”, he finally asks, if only to divert his imagination - he doesn’t lack of it, even though Eames seems to be persuaded of the opposite - from picturing Eames thighs in a series of very, very inconvenient positions.

“Yes, of course, love, in China.”

“And…?”

He feels the weight of Eames’ hand on his back. It only lasts for a couple of heartbeats, but it’s enough to make him shiver.

_ At least, Eames is gonna think that he’s cold, nothing more than that. _

“And when I was forging this petite suicidal girl with long black hair and mascara matted all over my cheeks, on the verge of jumping off a post-industrial monster of reinforced concrete, I thought about you, darling”, Eames coos, self-satisfied to the point of sounding obnoxious.

_ He’s Eames: sounding obnoxious is one of his most distinctive features. _

_ Eames, the condescending bastard. _

Arthur’s ears practically catch fire. His cheeks too, as if he had swallowed an entire Habanero pepper whole. He did once: it’s literally a miracle he’s still alive to hush up all the gossip regarding that old bet and the epic booze that had generated it. 

It seems like a whole lifetime has passed.

If he isn’t wrong, Mal was still alive at the time.

_ A lifetime ago indeed. _

He had already met Eames, though: who else would have spread the rumor, if not that insufferable prick?

“Why would you do that?”

Eames shrugs. Arthur can tell it by the gentle brushing of his shoulder against his own.

“Because,  _ appel du vide  _ and shit, I finally figured out that there’s only one thing that I want to do before I go”, he says, and Arthur can’t help but silently choke on his own spit.

“Which would be…?”

He laughs. And, this time, it’s a real, sincere laugh, not a giggle or a slight chuckle. A laugh that draws attention on them, making a few bystanders flinch, disturbed by the husky sound that comes from Eames’ throat and by his undisputable, system-defying boldness.

“You, Arthur, isn’t that obvious?”, he says, not even pretending they’re just a couple of randomly mismatched strangers anymore. “I want to do you, darling. Just once, before I die. Or twice, maybe. Three, four times… _ ” _ , he languidly whispers, his lips dangerously close to Arthur's cold ear.

All he can do is to let out a very undignified sigh. To which, of course, Eames replies with a hoarse laugh that smells like smoke, lemon and toothpaste.

“Come to Paris, when you're done here. In a few hours, when you're finally convinced that  your mark isn't gonna show up”, he simply says, his hand slightly brushing against Arthur's coat. 

Arthur feels like being torn between telling him to fuck off or simply nod in agreement. He doesn't do any of that at all, though. Nor yelling at him, nor making him know that he'll be there.

_ In a few hours. _

When Eames’ bulky form disappears in the crowd, probably headed to the next TGV to Paris, Arthur shoves his freeezing hand into his pocket.

_ The mark's not coming. He knows,  _ he ends up thinking, fidgeting with a card that feels like a price tag into the depths of his right pocket.

Except that he's always very careful not to leave price tags on and to empty his pockets whenever he's got the chance.

“Eames, you piece of shit”, he murmurs, picking the card up and examining it thoroughly.

It only reads an address, somewhere near  _ La Défense. _

Overleaf, a word written with a black ink fountain pen, exquisitely whimsical and curled like a work of art. Now he's got the proof Eames’ handwriting is  _ truly  _ versatile.

_ Darling _ , it reads.

Arthur feels his cheeks flush and knows, like he  _ simply knows  _ many things, that he'll be sitting on the next TGV to Paris in an hour or so.

  
  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  



End file.
